> I don't agree. The amount of damage ...

It wasn't a statement about the amount of relative damage. It was a statement that a voting system that leaks privacy beyond the polling station strictly increases the number of parties capable of coercion vs. a voting system that only requires securing the polling stations.

There's a big "if" in trusting the government to run honest polling stations (and keep phones/cameras/etc. out). That's not in question. However, if a blockchain voting system leaks voter privacy, then random online criminals halfway around the globe with no capability of controlling polling stations can still coerce voters without needing to physically control even a single polling station.

Electronic voting done right can be a force for good and transparency, but getting privacy right is absolutely critical. If you screw up privacy, you enormously increase the number of adversaries you need to worry about.

And there are many kinds of coercion. What's the price per vote in the poorest half of the population in Sierra Leone?

I also wonder if the blockchain means votes are cast publicly. Typically you vote, then tally. With every vote in public on the block chain, I could see mining companies bidding against each other for votes in real-time...

Why not just a voters ransomware? Lockdown the computer except for access to the voting tool, activate day-of, and it lays the stakes out: vote for our guy or say goodbye to your data.

You don't need a physical presence to coerce, it's simple to click and deploy, and even easier to Target phishing sites when you know what people are looking for.

I easily believe that an interested party would drop big cash on a good exploit for such an event.

Because that would be easily verified, and the election would be thrown out. The attack wouldn't accomplish anything.

This is a tactic used to maintain power - delay elections indefinitely. Currently it’s happening in a number of African countries.

Undermining the credibility could therefore accomplish “everything” (the intended purpose).

Being able to sabotage elections and force a rerun might be an accomplishment for somebody.

For example a foreign entity could use this to cause confusion and undermine people's trust in elections.

I'm pretty sure if I get the election thrown out and smear my likely to win opponent as someone doing this kind of tampering it's all good.

And you think nobody would report that to the police?

Granted, but people already report ransomware to the police with little to no effect. Businesses held hostage with their entire livelihood report it and still end up paying most of the time. The resolutions come month later typically.

I'm not against the idea of trying to modernize voting or blockchain in general, but there are extremely practical and real problems that come with it which are a magnitude easier to accomplish than it is with paper ballots at the moment.

I'm sure there is a procedural medium which alleviates this but I'm not bright enough to think of it at the moment.

The effect would be to hopefully have the election rescheduled. In this case actually catching the people isn't necessary to make the attack useless because the final goal is to compromise the election which can be prevented without trying to break the ransomware or find the perpetrators at all which is why reporting it to the police usually does nothing. Also the stakes are a lot higher than the usual ransomware so unless the government itself is trying to break the election the police have a much large incentive to get involved.

If you have a group physically controlling a polling station, it will be obvious to everyone that the election is rigged.

Small scale coercion, however, is easier to execute and easier to get away with, hence the need for your private vote to be cast in a public place.

> Small scale coercion, however, is easier to execute and easier to get away with

And it's something that, if standards of voting privacy are sufficiently eroded, could easily emerge even without any big conspiracy behind it. Just think of something as grass-roots as spouses not being amused about a certain vote, that alone could have a huge influence on the outcome in some settings. This potential for casual coercion is why I even consider it an erosion of democratic values when people abuse absentee votes for convenience. A mild erosion, but an erosion nonetheless.

Electronic voting could maybe improve on the issue of casual coercion if they allow individual votes to be recast until last minute, maybe even with some mix of deadline customization/randomization (with silent failure if already past the deadline) to add friction to less casual coercion attempts.

Russians have been stuffing boxes for years in Russia and it only came known after the surveillance camera was retrieved.

The Carter Center, among others, have published standards, criteria for observing elections.

Thugs don't beat you up these days, they throw money at you. At least that happens in India these days.

I don't think we are reading the same headlines these days.

It is common for roadblocks to be erected on election days in order to stop/search cars with bundles of cash in the back to pay the non-enfranchised to vote for a particular candidate. Sadly, lack of political awareness means many are ok to give their vote for cash.

The point of a secret ballot is that there is nothing to stop them taking the cash, then going to the polling station and voting for someone else. Are the ballots not secret in India?

They are. People sometimes take money from multiple parties at the same time. However many times largest spenders get the max votes. It is just not money, gifts including alcohol jewellery etc are given, so it mix of relationships with grassroots party representative(inc caste equations) and the gifts. If the sentiment is really against candidate no amount of money help.

You might not have enough power for "violence at scale" but you could have enough money to "invest" to buy your way in to government for bigger ROI.

Low-level coercion can have high level effects. Coercion doesn't have to be at the national level, either. Most elections aren't at scale, and the ones that are, are decided on a relatively few elections around the nation.

Coercion doesn't have to take on the form of violence, social and financial reprecussions can be incentive enough to vote a certain way with the proof that you did.

Think about this: "I don't want to associate/hire/do business with anyone who voted for Candidate X or Referendum A"